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Episode 958: Why Email is NOT a Task Management Tool

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Join us today for an episode about the reason your email inbox is not a good tool for tasks...

Today's episode is focused on developing a better way to manage email...

In today’s episode about investing in yourself by stewarding your time, I talk with you about why your inbox is terrible at task management.  I share what you can do instead to manage email and tasks instead.  I also share how to function in a high email but low value world.

Join in on the Chat below.

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Episode 958: Why Email is NOT a Task Management Tool

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 958 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:06] Paul Sohn: I'm Paul Sohn from Quara. I challenge you to discover your true identity and calling so you can be empowered to live everyday to the fullest. One way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:23] Scott Maderer: to function in a high email, low value world. And what I mean by high email, low value is most people get tons of emails throughout the day, but the vast majority of them are low value. They're just informational or they're something that you need to be aware of, but not act on that. You can read process and file quickly.

[00:00:45] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true [00:01:00] calling. And the inspired stewardship podcast will learn to invest in yourself.

[00:01:05] Invest in. And develop your influence so that you can impact the world

[00:01:12] And today's episode about investing in yourself by stewarding your time. I talk with you about why your inbox is a terrible task management tool. I share what you can do instead to manage your email and manage your task. And I also share how to function in a high email, but low value work. As we talk about stewarding your time.

[00:01:33] Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission will come back to support the show. Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/ammo.

[00:01:59] I'm a [00:02:00] big proponent of inbox, zero. The idea of emptying out your email inbox or inboxes for some people at the end of each day and keeping it in a relatively empty position where there's maybe one or two emails in there at the end of the day, at the most. And most times you have an inbox of zero, no inboxes in there.

[00:02:26] No emails in that inbox. One of the things I get is pushback about this is, but I use my inbox to manage tasks. I keep in my inbox, all of those emails that eventually I have to follow up on, or they have action that I need to do. Maybe I need to send us some paperwork or I need to get some information together.

[00:02:45] So I can't reply to the email right now today, but eventually in the next few days I need to. And the problem with that is that your inbox is a terrible. Task management tool should have some functionality to give something a due [00:03:00] date, to put things in chronological, order to list things with priorities, to have things disappear where they're not staring you in the face and come back on a regular time.

[00:03:10] And yes, you can snooze email and have it come back. But for many emails, there's tasks that you need to complete outside of the email itself before you can reply. So the truth is what you should be doing with you. First off, you should be checking it a few times a day at set times, not just keeping it open on your inbox on your side and responding to it.

[00:03:34] As soon as an email comes in. Secondly, you should actually, when you do process emails, when you do go through it, the first category of emails that you have are informational, you should just read a process, that information and archive it. If it's something that you find yourself not reading over and over again, you should unsubscribe from that.

[00:03:53] Email communication if at all possible. And if it has information in it that you may want to follow up on or save for [00:04:00] later, you can always create a file or a series of structured folders where you can store various information, create swipe files for content that you may want to go back to at a later time.

[00:04:13] Oftentimes you'll discover that later time never comes, but it still moves it out of your inbox and into a system that you can trust that gets it out of your head. And for items that require action, that isn't action you can do immediately within five or 10 minutes, that you can respond quickly and get it out of your inbox that way.

[00:04:33] Because once you've responded, you can file it. When they respond in turn, it'll pop back into your inbox. Or instead you can take those action items that take longer times, and you can create a task item for that on whatever task management tool that you use, whether it's a sauna or something else. And you can store those tasks there.

[00:04:54] You can assign them a priority. You can assign them a due date where they'll pop back up [00:05:00] and prompt you of what you need to do. You can even put the subject line of the email or a link to the email, depending on the email system you use so that you can go find that email very quickly, even if you've archived it and got it out of your inbox, because you can search for that, that two line, or you can search for that subject line, or you can use the URL to pull it back.

[00:05:21] So once you're ready to respond, you can simply pull the email back up and respond at that time. The truth is that moving those tasks out of your inbox and into a task management tool, lets you manage them because usually what people find themselves doing instead is scrambling to dig through all their emails, to find those, the ones that they have to access.

[00:05:42] Today or that they have to act on soon and they often lose track of those action items because it gets buried in this massive inbox with tons of emails and many of which even ended up going unreal. In this way you can manage email, is it comes in [00:06:00] and manage your task management system. And again, I've been in some very high email environments where I would get as many as a thousand to 2000 emails in a given day.

[00:06:11] And yet I still managed to maintain inbox zero by doing this. Only checking email about four or five times a day at set times for about an hour each time or 30 minutes each time, depending on which time of the day it was, I did a longer block in the beginning of the day, a longer block at the end of the day, and a couple of short blocks in the middle, just to keep up with what was coming.

[00:06:33] And is there any items that I need to respond to immediately? You can, of course also teach people things like putting the word urgent in the subject line, if it's truly something that requires urgent attention so that when you do process your emails, you can check on them very quickly and follow up on those very quickly.

[00:06:53] So in those cases, Simply using your email to identify task is [00:07:00] very different than using your email to manage those tasks, emails, not chronological. It doesn't have a priority system. You can flag emails and those sorts of things, and yes, you can snooze emails so that they pop back up on set times. But that's not as.

[00:07:15] It's most task management tools. The truth is you have to be able to do this to function in a high email, low value world. And what I mean by high email, low value is most people get tons of emails throughout the day, but the vast majority of them. Are low value. They're just informational or they're something that you need to be aware of, but not act on that.

[00:07:39] You can read process and file quickly. They're not usually things that actually create a lot of value in your world. And because of that, you have to manage how much time they take in your world, or else you end up doing a lot of very low. Value high [00:08:00] time work that doesn't really move the needle for you for your business, for your family, for your priorities.

[00:08:07] And in this way, as you begin to function and move out of inbox management and into task management, you will create more value in a high email, low value world. Thanks.

[00:08:21] thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your call. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting 4 4, 2, 2, 2 time tips, and that'll get you [00:09:00] our best tips on stewarding your time until next time.

[00:09:05] Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.

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In today's episode, I talk with you about:

  • Why your inbox is terrible at task management...  
  • What you can do instead to manage email and tasks instead...
  • How to function in a high email but low value world...
  • and more.....

Email is a system that delivers other people's priorities to your attention. It's up to you to decide when that priority should be managed into your world. It's not the other way around. - Chris Brogan

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Some of the Resources recommended in this episode:

I make a commission for purchases made through the following link.

Let Me Know What you Think Below....

Episode 948: Ten Tips to Stay Focused

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Join us today for an episode about the need to stay focused to be productive...

Today's episode is focused on ten tips to be more focused...

In today’s episode about developing your influence by stewarding your time, I talk with you about ten useful tips to improve your focus.  I also share why your focus is so important for your productivity.  I also share with you how focus can be the difference between success and failure.

Join in on the Chat below.

 

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Episode 948: Ten Tips to Stay Focused

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 948 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Barry Moline: I'm Barry Moline. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your call. Having the ability to connect with others is key.

[00:00:24] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer,

[00:00:34] Scott Maderer: because what ends up happening often as we get to the end of the day, we look at our lists. We were busy all day long, but we actually didn't get anything. I have days like that still today. And I've been studying this for 30 years. We all have days like that, but the key is to use these sorts of tests. So you have fewer and fewer of those days and more and more days where you get to the end of the day and you look at it.

[00:00:59] Welcome. [00:01:00] And thank you for joining us inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true color. In the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the work

[00:01:25] in today's episode about developing your influence by stewarding your time. I talk with you about 10 useful tips to improve your phone. I also share why your focus is so important for your productivity. And I share with you how focus can be the difference between success. As we talk about stewarding your time.

[00:01:46] Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns out you can. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via [00:02:00] Amazon and a small commission will come back to support the show. Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/animals.

[00:02:12] Let's talk a little bit more about focus and this comes up a lot on the podcast when we're talking about time, because I truly don't believe time is something that we manage, but I do think we can manage energy and we can manage focus and we can manage productivity to be able to use our time more effectively.

[00:02:34] So I talk more about those things than I do directly about time, man. What are some things that you can do to actually increase your ability to focus first off, let's talk about what that really is. Staying on task focus is about being able to do the things that you say you're going to do to concentrate on the things that you say you're going to [00:03:00] concentrate on to some extent, regardless of what's happening around you.

[00:03:05] But the truth is that's often a struggle. So the first step, the first tip is to actually assess where you are at assess your mental focus and your ability to focus. Your focus is good. If you find it easy to stay alert, if you set goals and you break up those goals into smaller tasks and you consistently achieve them, if you find yourself able to take a short break and then get right back to work without delay.

[00:03:34] But your focus needs work. If during a work task, you find yourself daydreaming, you find yourself constantly seeing and being pulled in other directions by distractions, and you consistently lose track of where you are and have to back up and reset. Find yourself resonating with that first set of statements, then your focus is probably pretty good, but if you find yourself resonating with the second, then you [00:04:00] probably need to work on your focus.

[00:04:03] The second tip. And the thing that is really important is your first step, always to increasing your focus is to minimize distraction. Often we think about that in terms of sound, but it can be other things as well. It can be your cell phone, it can be Facebook, it could be other people, all of these things can create interruptions and distractions that pull your focus away.

[00:04:29] And so you need to first evaluate what is distracting you and then find ways to reduce or eliminate that during times when you're trying to focus. And let's talk about the third one. Limiting your focus. The truth is that it often feels like the best way to make progress is to multitask, to do several things at one time.

[00:04:50] But all of the studies show that you are much less effective when you multitask, you get less done. So instead [00:05:00] find a way to concentrate on one thing at a time. Don't get your. Bouncing around to doing different things instead, look at one task, complete it, and then move on to the next one technique that you can use to do that.

[00:05:20] For here is using Pomodoros. I've talked about this before on the show using these focus blocks of 25 minutes of work, then a five minute break and then repeat. And once you've done four rounds, take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes. This technique is one way of helping yourself focus in on one task at a time.

[00:05:42] And number five, you can put a break or a lock on social media, do it on your phone, do it on the apps on the computer block. Those sites of those distractions are harder to go to. Number six, and this is about self care. You need to take care of your diet. You need to actually eat and you need to [00:06:00] eat well, not just sugary snacks, but eat things that actually help balance your energy out throughout the day.

[00:06:06] Things like complex Kartra carbohydrates or lean proteins and these sorts of things. And similarly, number seven, you need to get enough sleep. You need to actually make sure that you're getting all of the sleep that your body needs. And let's talk about the types of goals that you're setting. Number eight is making sure that you're setting tasks that are small, manageable, and specific smart goal type task, that you're breaking things down into the levels that you can actually get done so that you're able to focus on them without suddenly getting to a task that says something like rewrite my entire website, and it's so big that it stalls you out and you end up easily going in other directions and not getting it.

[00:06:52] Number nine, you can work on your mindfulness. You can actually do activities like meditation [00:07:00] and other activities to work on focusing and paying attention to what's going on inside yourself. And then number 10. You can actually learn to make a good to do list and by good to do list, I mean what I was just talking about with smart goals.

[00:07:15] You learn to break tasks down and put them on your to-do list in small chunks that you can actually get done instead of just massive areas. And you also can use that to do list as a way of capturing tasks that pop up at your brain and would distract you so that you don't forget them, but you can actually get them done.

[00:07:35] And I'll give you a bonus tip as well. You can batch your tasks so that you can focus on similar task at similar times that also helps your focus and your effectiveness. This is important for your productivity because the truth is what keeps us from getting enough done and getting the right things done tends to be that multi-tasking distracted way that we [00:08:00] do work.

[00:08:01] The truth is when you do studies and people that focus are always able to get not just more done, but they're able to get things done in a more effective way. It's a better way of doing it and focusing on a task or not focusing is often the difference between success. And failure. It's the difference between actually getting things done on your list, checking them off, making sure that you're actually getting, not just more things done, but the right things done, because what ends up happening often as we get to the end of the day, we look at our lists.

[00:08:36] We were busy all day long, but we actually didn't get anything done. I have days like that still today. And I've been studying this for 30 years. We all have days like that, but the key is to use these sorts of techniques. So you have fewer and fewer of those days and more and more days where you get to the end of the day and you look at it and you say, I got done.

[00:08:58] Not only [00:09:00] everything I wanted to get done, but those things were actually the most important task for me to do. Thanks for listening.

[00:09:09] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your call. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting 4 4, 2, 2, 2 time tips, and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time.

[00:09:54] Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and [00:10:00] impact the world. .

Scroll back to top


In today's episode, I talk with you about:

  • Ten useful tips to improve your focus... 
  • Why your focus is so important for your productivity...
  • How focus can be the difference between success and failure...
  • and more.....

I don’t care how much power, brilliance or energy you have, if you don’t harness it and focus it on a specific target, and hold it there you’re never going to accomplish as much as your ability warrants. — Zig Ziglar

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Some of the Resources recommended in this episode:

I make a commission for purchases made through the following link.

Let Me Know What you Think Below....

Episode 943: How “A” Players Avoid Burnout

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Join us today for an episode about the need to identify and avoid burnout...

Today's episode is focused on avoiding burnout as a high performer...

In today’s episode about investing in others by stewarding your time, I talk with you about how top performers avoid burnout.  I also share how to recognize it in yourself and others.  I also talk about how burnout leads to bigger issues than just employee lost.

Join in on the Chat below.

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Episode 943: How “A” Players Avoid Burnout

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 943 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Taylor Stephens: I'm Taylor Stevens, AKA Mr. Five guy. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your call. Having the ability to focus on what's really important.

[00:00:25] And to define your route to independence is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott, me.

[00:00:36] Scott Maderer: sending emails at two in the morning and expecting an answer. You actually understand that people need to take time off. And recharge while they're on vacation, you expect them to actually be on vacation and you enforce that and live that pattern yourself. If you're the boss, how's the solo preneur. That can be a little harder because sometimes if you're not [00:01:00] working, you're not working.

[00:01:01] Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time. And your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world

[00:01:27] in today's episode about investing in others. By stewarding your time. I talk with you about how top performers can avoid burn. Also share how to recognize the signs of burnout in yourself and others. And I also talk about how burnout leads to bigger issues than just losing employees. As we talk about stewarding your time.

[00:01:50] Wouldn't it be great if you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns out you can. All you have to do is use inspired [00:02:00] stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission will come back to support the show. Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/

[00:02:15] One of the things that happens is there's often people that are top performers. You're probably one of them. These are the people that deliver more than their ass, that work hard, that are constantly the ones at the top of the list, whether they're working for someone else or working for themselves, they're always going above and beyond to try to deliver more.

[00:02:39] But what happens is oftentimes these top performers begin to burn out. We've talked about burnout before on the podcast, but I wanted to go into a little bit of detail about how to recognize burnout and then some of the things that you can do to avoid it. First off you need to know for [00:03:00] yourself and for others to begin to look for the signs and educate each other on what are the signs that burnout may be happening.

[00:03:08] Here are some of those you may have exhaustion or difficulty sleeping. You may have lower productivity. Maybe you begin to see the amount that you get done each done day, go lower and lower. You began to get, make mistakes and forget to do things overlooked, task and jobs that are coming. You have a higher rate of illness or more sick days or absentee days, you begin to suffer from depression or irritability, or you get very cynical and begin to lash out with sarcasm and cynicism.

[00:03:41] And then of course you begin to see absenteeism, lateness, or even sometimes stated plans about leaving. All of these are signs of. And often by the time you're seeing all of these, the person is already well on their way to completely burning out. So you [00:04:00] need to begin to look for these and see them early and teach each other what to look for.

[00:04:06] If you're a solopreneur, you're going to see some of these things from time to time. But when it becomes a pattern, that's going to be a problem. And if you're an employer and you have employees, you may see it from time to time. But when it becomes an overarching pattern, especially when it's your top performers exhibiting it, this is a problem.

[00:04:25] So how can you begin to help people avoid it, or if you're working for yourself, how can you help yourself? One of those things is assigning fair workloads. Oftentimes the top performers are always asked to go above and beyond and do even more and that can lead to burnout. So what happens. Is because they're doing more, they get frustrated and eventually leave.

[00:04:50] So distributing the work fairly as important. And if you're a solopreneur, that means you have to look at the things that you're trying to put on your own plate and pick and [00:05:00] choose what actually are the things that are the most important. What are the things that you need to do? And what are the things that you need to take off your plate?

[00:05:11] That's how you assign a fair workload. In that case, you also need to make sure that employees are trained and know what they're supposed to be doing, or as a solo preneur that you've clearly identified. What are the jobs that you're working with? And even if you can't outsource them, you're still developing processes and training for yourself as well.

[00:05:33] Because oftentimes we just end up winging it all the time. And that creates burnout for employees. It's the same thing. If we don't train them, that creates burnout. And then also creating an opportunity for feedback. Checking in with your employees. If you're an employer and letting them help identify what problems they're having, make sure that they know their goals and their expectations, help each member collaborate [00:06:00] with others.

[00:06:01] And again, if you're employed by yourself, create a system where you give feedback to yourself, create a regular pattern of reviewing what's going on and examining that. And then the last one and probably in many ways, the most important help develop work life balance. Now, I don't like that term because balance to a lot of people implies equalness.

[00:06:25] But what I mean is make sure that you're pre creating time. Vacations for breaks for mental health days. For time off, you create flexible schedules or options to do remote work. You create boundaries and tell people, turn off your email at a certain time, and you actually expect them to do that instead of sending emails at two in the morning and expecting an answer, you actually understand that people need to take time off and recharge.

[00:06:57] While they're on vacation. You expect them to [00:07:00] actually be on vacation and you enforce that and live that pattern yourself. If you're the boss now as a solopreneur, that can be a little harder because sometimes if you're not working, you're not earning money, but it still doesn't matter. You have to schedule in that time to take a break, to give yourself some time off.

[00:07:19] The truth is burnout leads to more than just losing employees. Burnout leads to health problems. Burnout leads to irritability and lashing out at others. Burnout leads to not having good relationships and not having good energy. Burnout leads to lots and lots of lost effort and time and money because of the stress and strain.

[00:07:44] It puts on us and learning to recognize these signs early and avoid them is something we all need to be better at doing. Thanks for listening.

[00:07:55] So much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, [00:08:00] as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign. For our stewardship of time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting 4 4, 2, 2, 2 time tips.

[00:08:32] And that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time. Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.

Scroll back to top


In today's episode, I talk with you about:

  • How top performers avoid burnout...  
  • How to recognize it in yourself and others...
  • How burnout leads to bigger issues than just employee lost...
  • and more.....

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.  – Ovid

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Some of the Resources recommended in this episode:

I make a commission for purchases made through the following link.

Let Me Know What you Think Below....

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